updated 12:25 pm EDT, Mon August 10, 2009

Kingston SSDNow V Plus

Kingston has upgraded the speed of its solid-state drives for the second time in two months with a morning launch for the SSDNow V+ line. The new 2.5-inch drives use a much faster controller and storage that more than doubles the peak read performance from 100MB per second to 220MB. Writing speeds have likewise been given a large boost and now top out at 180MB per second for the best model versus just 80MB before.

Capacity has been given an according upgrade with a new 256GB model joining 64GB and 128GB in the transition to the faster speeds. Any of the drives can connect to an original SATA or SATA II interface. The 64GB drive is available immediately and sells for $254. Larger capacities are coming at an unspecified point in the near future but will cost $500 for a 128GB drive and $992 for a 256GB edition.